Cecil van Haanen was a Vienna -born Dutch portrait and genre painter , whose significant work was centered at Venice .

Van Haanen was the son to landscape painter Remigius Adrianus Haanen (1812-1894) and Emilie Mayer von Alsó-Rußbach. He received early artistic training from his father and Friedrich Schilcher , and from April 1854 was educated at the pre-school of the Vienna Academy under Peter Johann Nepomuk Geiger .

He attended the Karlsruhe Academy from 1863 to 1865, where he was taught by Ludwig des Coudres and Johann Wilhelm Schirmer . Later he was admitted to Karl von Piloty 's school of painting in Munich , where he was taught by Hermann Anschütz , and became friends with the painter Wilhelm Leibl .

In 1866 he moved to Antwerp where he stayed for six years. Here he was taught by Jozef Van Lerius , who introduced him to history and portrait painting, and genre painting which became the significant oeuvre of his later painting in Venice. Although living largely in Venice from 1873, he spent time in London working as a magazine illustrator.

Cecil van Haanen died in Vienna and was buried in Vienna Central Cemetery .